A term of art you hear tossed about all the time when discussing screenplays is "Backstory." It refers to a character's history, what's their story prior to the present tense of the film. Lots of writers spend enormous amounts energy composing intricate histories for their characters, full of details and nuance, from favorite breakfast food [...]
There's a particular kind of dialogue that almost always reads as false, that always sounds as if the writer ran out of steam. It's sometimes called Asked and Answered. Or Asked to Answer. Or Prompting Dialogue. I like to call it Eliciting Dialogue. It's a line of dialogue whose sole purpose is to elicit a [...]
Nobody likes to be pushed around. Well. Almost nobody. And as in life, so with literature. We are always more engaged in a story when we feel pulled along rather than pushed forward. Drawn into the flow of event and language rather than lectured and led. Isn't that the deeper meaning of the film writing [...]
The phrase character arc (with the emphasis, inevitably, simply due to the phonetic construction, the meter of the phrase, on arc) leads us to think narrowly. Simplistically. As if such yearning were singular, knowable. Can be rendered in a sentence. It seldom can. Such desire is lifelong and chaotic. Ever shifting. Moving from failure to [...]
Story is always carried by character. Character generates plot. Character creates motive. Character endures consequence. It is from a character's passion, drive, desire that plot becomes more than event. Becomes meaningful. Plot devoid of consistent character — driven and driving character – is merely spectacle. Structure without voice is empty form. Never forget that empathy [...]
